Samsung confirms Exynos 4 Quad for Galaxy S3 smartphone

Following on from releasing a Galaxy S3 teaser at the beginning of the week, South Korean electronics giant Samsung has announced that their Exynos 4 quad-core mobile chip will power the now-imminent Galaxy S3 smartphone, bringing an end to speculations as to whether the new range topping handset would pack a dual-core or quad-core chip.

A spokesperson speaking to CNet, commented that the debut device featuring the new chip will be the Galaxy S3. "Already in production, the Exynos 4 Quad is scheduled to be adopted first into Samsung's next Galaxy smartphone that will officially be announced in May," referring to their Unpacked 2012 Galaxy themed product launch in London next week.

The new chip will run at 1.4GHz per core and is based on the ARM Cortex A9 design, using the 32nm High-k Metal Gate technology, also including power management, per-core dynamic voltage control, and frequency scaling. The end result is a chip that delivers twice the performance of the previous generation 45nm processors with a 20 percent reduction in power consumption.

"Samsung's next Galaxy device, which will be officially announced soon, offers uncompromised performance and ground breaking multi-tasking features," according to Hankil Yoon, senior VP of product strategy.

The Galaxy S2's successor was always destined to feature a powerhouse of a chip, but the recently released HTC One X has certainly increased doubts about the effect quad-core SoC solutions have on handset battery life. Samsung hopes that the chip's ability to scale down each core individually, alongside per-core dynamic voltage and frequency scaling will help reduce battery consumption when the device is idle or in standby.

The chip will be capable of playing back almost any media format in full 1080p HD at 30fps, as well as featuring an embedded image signal processor interface for its camera and HDMI output. The new quad-core SoC is also capable of providing "console-like 3D gaming on-the-go" according to Samsung.

OEM partners will be pleased to hear that the new Exynos 4 Quad is pin for pin compatible with existing Exynos dual-core SoC's, enabling them to release more powerful devices to the market based on their current designs.